Anthem by Leonard Cohen: Words of Wisdom

I've been dealing with a nasty relapse of my pain condition so I've been looking for commiseration and inspiration.

I had dinner with friends the other night, and the background music switched to a Leonard Cohen song: Anthem. It is impossible to ignore his coarse, earthy voice, and we all stopped chatting to listen. What we heard in the chorus of this song was a combination of prayer, blessing, mantra, forgiveness, commandment, and lament.

"Forget your perfect offering.
There is a crack in everything;
That's how the light gets in.
Ring ring the bell. Ring the bell."

This Weeks Grand Rounds

a collection of posts from the health care blogosphere is up at Captain Atopic. It's a good read.

And up at Emergiblog, there's another great Grand Rounds with an emphasis on the nursing community.

Home Alone

Just as I was entering week two of a kick-in-the gut relapse of my pain condition, Richard needed to travel for a few business meetings. Usually he works at home and conducts business through the vast amalgam of web tools he has harnessed.

So I am hurting, alone. And he is worrying, alone.

But now, we are older and more experienced, and have lived through the darkest days of the pain, and through innumerable bursts of relapses over the past ten years.

Before he left he stocked the refrigerator with apples, and broccoli, and chicken, and Chinese take-out, and even cut up a whole watermelon into chunks. He set up videoconferencing on my laptop (his already had this capability). I made dates with friends to talk to and walk with and have me over for dinner. I upped my meds to dull the sharper edges of the pain.

Richard and I talk and text and tweet each other. It's some comfort. but it's hard on both of us to be hurting and worrying, alone.

How do you manage the daily tasks and find comfort when you and your sweetie are apart?

Caretaker Stress Affects Health of Partner with Heart Failure

From an article by Nicole Stodard in EmpowerHer

A recent study that appears in the July/August 2009 issue of Heart and Lung affirms in a broad sense what anyone in a committed relationship, particularly a marriage, already knows from experience: one spouse’s mental or physical health ailments can, and often do, tax the other spouse.

This study is particularly concerned with the implications of this dynamic when one spouse has some form of heart failure (HF), a chronic progressive condition that occurs when the heart muscle can’t pump enough blood through the heart to meet the body’s blood and oxygen demand.

The study found that a spouse’s distress had substantially greater impact on the HF patient’s overall health and the course of the patient’s illness than the reverse scenario. Considering the fact that 5.7 million Americans have HF and well over half a million new cases are diagnosed each year, this is concerning.

Relationship Stress Goes to Work

From a story by Ken Potts in the Daily Herald:

Most company-sponsored health plans do not cover marital therapy. The assumption seems to be that marital issues do not really impact job performance and, thus, should not be part of job-related health insurance. There is also a concern that marriage therapy goes on forever and doesn't really accomplish much.

Though the second assumption as to the effectiveness of marital therapy has been debunked more than a few times, the first assumption has been stubbornly held on to for decades. Employees leave their home life at home, or at least they should. Work is for work!

Of course, we all know from our own experience that is not true, but somehow that hasn't change our minds. Or, at least, until recently.

Research completed at a major university concluded that troubled marriages cost the economy $2.9 billion a year. That's right - $2.9 billion.

The study suggested that stress is known to weaken the immune system. Any relational struggles, but marital conflict in particular, result in a significant increase in stress for the people involved. The research suggested that marital-related stress resulted in a significant increase in illness and in the use of sick days by employees.